rest of the body. It is emphatically the day of the soul, which is to be sanctified, and with the origin of which it is placed in close juxta-position. Let us remark this, and as we think of the living soul which GOD breathed into our nostrils, think also of the means by which, through this ordinance as a day of prayer and praise, that soul is to be sanctified. It was set apart for special religious use by man. The Jew traced back the Sabbath to the Law, and its delivery from Mount Sinai, and magnified its directions as given in the letter, and not the spirit; but we are to remember, as taught in this passage, that it existed from the very first. It is referred to several times before the giving of the Law, and we find it to have been prevalent even among nations unconnected with the Jewish Law. We may see, therefore, in it an institution that survived, as forms and institutions often do, the corruptions which, through idolatry and superstition, had crept in and overpowered the worship of Jehovah. By Christians it has been a third time applied in commemoration of another, and still greater event, the triumphing over death and the grave in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If it is a Sabbath, or rest, it is also the Lord's day, and very much we mistake its nature and object if we do

not combine these, and sanctify it. The very character of the institution will show that it may not be trifled with. It is not a thing ordered to be done and there is an end of it. It is not our showing ourselves here as God's people. This is coming to church and complying with the injunction of the Apostles, to assemble ourselves together, but it is not observing, neither is it sanctifying the Sabbath; which requires all our attention and energy, our anxious supervision over ourselves, our children, and our dependents, to fulfil this injunction to keep the day holy. The Jews abused it, and, as it were, fossilized the spirit of it into the mere or pretended observance of the letter. The Pharisees exerted all their ingenuity to corrupt it, by laying down strict rules as to what might, and what might not be done. They railed at our Lord for healing, and even on those who were healed, for accepting their cure on the Sabbath Day. The same spirit has in many things survived, and may be often traced among us in our own day. We stiffen rules and observances. We refrain from one thing and tolerate another, only too often as the world and not as GOD dictates, but we do not sanctify the Sabbath. No outward rite will sanctify it. No abstinence from this or that practice of other days. No attendance in our place

in church will sanctify it. These are but means to an end, and all must be used and much more than all these; such a spirit must be induced upon them as shall lead us to sanctify the Lord GOD in our hearts, to improve the day thus set apart to our growth, and the growth of our families and dependants in spiritual graces; or we fail in apprehending that Rest which GOD instituted, or in attaining that rest which it typifies, when all the promises and blessings of this lower world shall again be fulfilled and finished.

GEN. ii. 4, 5, 6.

"These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground."

WITH the history of the seventh day we might very naturally close our enquiries into the account of the creation, but there are various phenomena of natural history as well as particulars of the early history of mankind which will well repay our consideration. I propose, therefore, to follow up the remarks I have already offered you in the examination of the passages relating to the creation, and showing the creative powers of God by an examination of some of the other passages in which the incidents I have referred to are related. Such is the passage now before us. In the first and second verses we have a recapitulation of what the first chapter has told us. There has been an account given us of our own origin and creation as well as that of everything we see around "God spake the word, and they were made, he commanded and they were created." There have not

us.

been wanting those who have thought themselves wiser than this. "The fool hath said in his heart there is no GOD"-no Creator. But all nature, as well as the powers of nature, which we classify as mechanical or as natural philosophy, as well as our own conscience, testify to the contrary, and the fool stands by himself and shuts his eyes to self-evident truths, because either he will not, or, perhaps, dare not, acknowledge to himself the certainty of those truths which condemn him. There have been those who have invented other theories of creation than that which Moses has so simply given, but observation and facts alike refute them, and we come back, of necessity, after all our enquiries and speculations, to the declarations of GOD's word as the only source of knowledge upon the subject. Let me recall to your memory that in the preceding account we have seen the origin of plants and herbs, the formation of their seeds, and the provision for their growth and increase. This passage tells us, but in such simple words, that the importance of it may very readily escape us, that before there was rain, and before there was a man to till the ground, there went up a mist from the earth, and fell in dew and rain. This simply and beautifully sets before us that wonderful provision by which through